Now Geany and Geany-Plugins 1.23 are out, I merged support for GTK3 inGeany, and added initial support for building Geany-Plugins against aGTK3 build of Geany.

As you might know, GTK3 has some incompatibilities with GTK2, and GTK3code often requires some adjustments to work with GTK3. Since it is notpossible to load both GTK2 and GTK3 in the same program, a GTK3 build ofGeany requires plugins also built against GTK3.

So, I'd like to ask you to consider adjusting your plugins so they buildwith GTK3 too. Note that *we don't mean to remove GTK2 support*, soadjusting your plugin should make it work with *both* GTK2 and GTK3.

If you need any assistance to add GTK3 support for your plugin or haveany question about it, feel free to contact me.

Regards,Colomban

[1] GTK3 behaves a little differently than GTK2 on some matters,particularly with some widget packing. It is however totally possible(and not hard) to get packing rules that work exactly the same on bothGTK2 and GTK3.

Post by Colomban WendlingHi dear plugins developers,Now Geany and Geany-Plugins 1.23 are out, I merged support for GTK3 inGeany, and added initial support for building Geany-Plugins against aGTK3 build of Geany.As you might know, GTK3 has some incompatibilities with GTK2, and GTK3code often requires some adjustments to work with GTK3. Since it is notpossible to load both GTK2 and GTK3 in the same program, a GTK3 build ofGeany requires plugins also built against GTK3.So, I'd like to ask you to consider adjusting your plugins so they buildwith GTK3 too. Note that *we don't mean to remove GTK2 support*, soadjusting your plugin should make it work with *both* GTK2 and GTK3.[...]

I forgot to mention that Geany now have a header called gtkcompat.h thatgets included by geanyplugin.h which gives some GTK2/3 compatibility.This means you don't have to do the conditionals yourself for somethings if you depend on Geany 1.24 (current Git):

* Key names for GDK_* are available under GTK3 too (e.g. without theGDK_KEY_ prefix).

* GtkComboBoxText API is available even with GTK < 2.24.

* gtk_widget_set_can_default(),gtk_widget_is_toplevel(),gtk_widget_is_sensitive(),gtk_widget_has_focus(),gtk_widget_get_sensitive(),gtk_widget_set_has_window() andgtk_widget_set_can_focus()are available even with GTK < 2.18.

* gtk_widget_get_mapped() is available even with GTK < 2.20.

* gtk_widget_get_allocated_height() andgtk_widget_get_allocated_width() are available on GTK2.

Beyond just GNOME apps and tools being stripped of options, Red Hatemployee and lead GNOME developer William Jon McCann was caught openinga bug report on the independent Transmission BitTorrent client tellingthe developers that its panel notification feature should be removed.Why? Merely because GNOME 3 no longer supports a panel: “Transmissionhas an option in the Desktop tab of the preferences to ‘ShowTransmission icon in the notification area’. This should probably beremoved.” Transmission developer Charles replied, “So now we can havethree builds of Transmission that decide at compile time whether to useAppIndicator, GtkStatusIcon or nothing at all… Removing it altogether,as you suggest, will hurt Xfce users.” McCann replied, “I guess you haveto decide if you are a GNOME app, an Ubuntu app, or an Xfce appunfortunately… And I have no idea what Xfce is or does, sorry. It is myhope that you are a GNOME app.” Charles’s reply to this: “*speechless*”.

I like Geany since it is light and works seamlessly with XFCE. Will theGeany be forced to choose between GNOME and everyone else by moving toGTK3? Please investigate this carefully.

- Nate

--"The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of allpossible worlds. The pessimist fears this is true."

Post by Nate BargmannWhile it's likely that distros will want to drop support for GTK 2 assoon as they can, there seems to be some issue on the part of GNOMEhttp://igurublog.wordpress.com/2012/11/05/gnome-et-al-rotting-in-threes/http://www.linuxuser.co.uk/opinion/a-linux-conspiracy-theoryBeyond just GNOME apps and tools being stripped of options, Red Hatemployee and lead GNOME developer William Jon McCann was caught openinga bug report on the independent Transmission BitTorrent client tellingthe developers that its panel notification feature should be removed.Why? Merely because GNOME 3 no longer supports a panel: “Transmissionhas an option in the Desktop tab of the preferences to ‘ShowTransmission icon in the notification area’. This should probably beremoved.” Transmission developer Charles replied, “So now we can havethree builds of Transmission that decide at compile time whether to useAppIndicator, GtkStatusIcon or nothing at all… Removing it altogether,as you suggest, will hurt Xfce users.” McCann replied, “I guess you haveto decide if you are a GNOME app, an Ubuntu app, or an Xfce appunfortunately… And I have no idea what Xfce is or does, sorry. It is myhope that you are a GNOME app.” Charles’s reply to this: “*speechless*”.

*sight*. I didn't read your links yet but if a GNOME developer can say"you need to choose between GNOME and something else" and "I have noidea what Xfce uses or does" GNOME is leading in an even worse directionthan I though…

Post by Nate BargmannI like Geany since it is light and works seamlessly with XFCE. Will theGeany be forced to choose between GNOME and everyone else by moving toGTK3?

But don't worry, we are not a GNOME application and won't remove stuffjust because some crazy GNOME guy think that don't fit. Adding supportfor GTK3 in Geany is not to become GNOME, but simply to keep up to datewith current version of our platform library (GTK), and so not to getrushed in a few years when GTK2 will start to die.

We will still support GTK2 for a long time (see, currently we onlydepend on GTK 2.16).We won't follow the crazy removal of everything that is happening moreand more in GNOME3.

I don't see what we would have to investigate: the toolkit we use got anew major version and we added support to it, that's it. GNOME don'thave anything to tell us about, and in the even they do, we'll just tellthem it's not their business.

Using GTK3 (or GNOME) doesn't make one sign a "we will follow your wayof thinking" agreement.